


The Care and Keeping of a Bird Boy

by dropitlikeitslukewarm



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Maximum Ride - James Patterson
Genre: AU, F/M, Hetalia, High School AU, M/M, Maximum Ride Au, PruAus - Freeform, PruHun, aushun, i guess, look it's prussia with wings, you cant want more
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-04 03:09:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4123543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dropitlikeitslukewarm/pseuds/dropitlikeitslukewarm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizaveta woke one morning to find a boy with wings in her back yard.  She doesn't really understand who he is or what he's doing there, but clearly he needs help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Unexpected Guest

1\. An Unexpected Guest

Elizaveta’s room was near pitch black, as one would expect it to be in the dead of night. A faint orange glow managed to work its way past the blinds from the street lamp just outside. An alarm clock, its numbers a garish red, was the only stand-alone light in the bedroom. Elizaveta slept soundly.  


The night progressed normally and peacefully until morning came and that unsuspecting little alarm clock became the bane of Elizaveta’s existence. Groggy, she pulled herself out of bed and crossed the room to turn it off. She made her way into the hallway and down the stairs, trying very hard not to fall over. She poured herself a glass of water at the kitchen sink.  


Tired as she was, a flash of white caught her eye. She made her way over to the back door and peered out the window into the backyard. A white lump leaned against the trunk of the oak tree out back. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what the hell it was. It looked like a giant tarp wadded up, but she knew that couldn’t be it. She grabbed an umbrella from a holder next to the door. Deep down, she knew it was stupid to think that an umbrella could offer any protection, but she took it with her anyways.  


She stepped outside and her feet were immediately soaked by dew. As she drew nearer to the white lump, she could see that… whatever it was, was actually quite dirty. She rubbed her eyes to clear her vision. She couldn’t believe what she was looking at. Before her sat a massive pile of feathers. Rather, it was a pile of massive feathers. The smallest ones were the size of her hand, and some of the largest ones were at least the length of her entire arm. How feathers of this size came to be in her back yard, or what they came from, were a mystery to her.  


Acting on instinct, she poked the pile with the tip of the umbrella. Unfortunately for her, the pile reacted on instinct as well. A massive pair of wings rose into the air, revealing a human curled up beneath them. Elizaveta shrieked and fell backwards into the grass. The wings flapped weakly as the human beneath them spun around to meet her.  


And there they sat, face to face.  


Elizaveta said nothing. She couldn’t. Her eyes darted all over the figure in front of her. That massive pair of wings was attached to the shoulders of this human. A boy. The person in front of her was a boy that looked to be about her age, maybe older, but not by much. He was dressed only in a pair of simple cotton pants. Just like his wings, his hair was pale white. His skin was covered in dark, horrific blotches of purple and broken by fading scars. She focused last on his eyes, which were an unsettling shade of red and staring right back at her.  


The boy was crouched, obviously debating on fight or flight. Elizaveta’s heart pounded in her chest.  


“Who are you?” She asked, trying to get her breathing under control. He tilted his head to the side. Could he not understand?  


“D-do you have a name?” She tried. The boy sat back on his heels and raised his wings above his head. He looked down at her cautiously.  


“Gilbert. My… my name is Gilbert,” he said quietly. His voice carried an accent that was familiar, but she couldn’t place it at the moment.  


“Gilbert? You have a name and your name is Gilbert… What are you?” Gilbert flapped his wings and raised a brow at her. The message was clear: he was a boy with wings. It was barely 7 a.m. and Elizaveta had stumbled upon something straight out of a science fiction novel in her back yard. Her head was spinning. It didn’t make sense.  


“Where did you come from?” She asked. He hopped backwards, withdrawing his wings.  


“You can’t make me go back.” His voice was low and carried a dark undertone. She realized pretty quickly that she shouldn’t have asked that. At least not yet.  


“Okay, okay!” She said quickly, sitting up in the grass. A light turning on next door reminded her how early it was. Her parents would be waking up soon. She was supposed to be getting ready for school and there was a… a person? A creature? There was someone in her back yard who probably wasn’t supposed to be there. She had to think quickly.  


“Okay, Gilbert? I need you to listen to me for a second.” Gilbert perked back up again, but said nothing. “My parents are going to wake up in a minute. I need to talk to them. I won’t tell them that you’re here!” She added that last bit in when she saw the look of fear and confusion on his face. She stood slowly, so as not to startle him, then held out her hand.  


“I need you to come with me, okay? I need to hide you.”  


“Hide?” He repeated as he reached for her hand. He at least seemed to understand that much. She took his hand gently in hers and led him to the garden shed behind their house. It wasn’t an ideal place to toss someone who was clearly spooked, but at least no one would see him.  


She opened the door and ushered him in. She closed the door and reassured him that she would be back soon. She didn’t have time to check if he understood. Elizaveta bolted inside and up the stairs. Just a few moments after she had made it back into her room, her mother knocked on the door.  


“Good morning, Eliza. Is there anything you need before- good lord! Is that sweat? Are you alright?” Elizaveta couldn’t figure out what she meant until she realized that her entire back was soaked with dew. She couldn’t have asked for a more perfect set up.  


“Um, yeah. I think it is. I didn’t feel too great when I went to sleep last night. I must’ve broken a fever in the night,” Elizaveta lied.  


“You do look a little pale… Do you feel any better?” Her mother asked, concern written all over her face. Elizaveta shook her head.  


“Not really. Do you think I could just stay home from school?”  


“Of course. Do you need you need anything from the store? Your father and I can pick it up on our way home from work.” Elizaveta shook her head again, wishing desperately for her parents to just be at work already. “Alright, well… if you need anything, give us a call.”  


Her mother left her room and Elizaveta gave a sigh of relief and a silent thanks that her parents were pretty lenient and understanding. Still, she spent another 20 minutes waiting for both of her parents to leave the house, which meant Gilbert had to spend another 20 minutes in the shed. As soon as she saw the second car pull out onto the street, she was back downstairs and then into the yard. She opened the shed door to find that, thankfully, Gilbert was still there. He stood and rushed out of the shed, stretching his wings.  


“Oh, sorry. I didn’t think about the tight space,” Elizaveta mumbled sheepishly. “I’m sorry I left you in there so long. My parents had to leave for work and I had to wait on them.”  


He said nothing in response, and once again the two were locked in a staring contest. Elizaveta looked him over again. Aside from being bruised and battered, he looked underfed and malnourished. His eyes stood out so much because of the dark circles surrounding them.  


“You’re probably hungry, aren’t you?” She asked. He nodded enthusiastically in response. She smiled. “Do you want to come inside? I can make you something to eat.” She walked backwards to the door, waiting to see if he would follow. There was a moment of hesitation, but he trailed after her and folded his wings as he passed through the door.  


“You can sit on the couch in here if you want.” She walked him through the kitchen and into the living room. He looked around her home curiously, then fixated on the television.  


“Can you turn on the news?” He asked. “If anyone knows, the news would say so.” She assumed he meant that if anyone had seen him, the reports of a flying child would be all over the news. She complied with his request and turned on the morning news. She had to admit to herself that she was shocked that he knew what the news was, or that he might be on it. Of course, there wasn’t really much about this boy at all that didn’t shock her.  


She left him to his own devices while she cooked up a breakfast for both of them. She wasn’t sure what he could eat, but all they had in terms of decent breakfast foods were instant oatmeal packets and some oranges. She had already passed those on to him to eat while he waited. When she returned to the living room, the three oranges she had given him were just a pile of peels. She had no time to warn him that the bowl and its contents would be hot. He wolfed down the oatmeal, unhindered by the temperature.  


They sat together and watched the news until television shows meant for children came on TV. Gilbert seemed equally as interested in those as he was in the news, if not more interested.  


“Is there someone who would be looking for you?” She asked, trying once again to figure out who and what exactly Gilbert was. Since he had eaten, he seemed to be in better spirits. She hoped he would actually speak to her.  


“Oh yes. I’m not supposed to be out right now. Or… ever, really. I couldn’t stay though. They hurt me a lot when I was there. They made me do things I didn’t want to do.”  


“Who?”  


“It’s this… place. Hard to explain. It’s like a lab I guess. I dunno. There are a lot of people who call themselves scientists. They do lots of experiments there. There are others like me. I wasn’t born there though. I was born in Germany. They were nice to me there. But I guess if you are too hard on your test subjects too early, you don’t have a test subject very long.”  


His sentences were short and choppy, but his German origins explained the accent and why it seemed so familiar. Rodereich, her boyfriend, had the same accent, though he was Austrian.  


“So you escaped? How?” He shrugged in response but remained silent. Clearly he wasn’t willing to talk about that just yet.  


“Are you still hungry?” She asked. He looked down at his empty bowl, then at her. He nodded. She rose from the couch and went back to cooking. She made more than she did the last time in hopes of getting him filled up. When she returned, he was back to watching the children’s shows very intently. The characters would celebrate some small triumph and she couldn’t help but notice how his wings would perk up a bit every time something good happened. She set several bowls down in front of him and he went to work quickly, devouring his breakfast without a second thought. Soon enough he was done and his full attention returned to the television.  


Elizaveta took this time to try and figure his wings out. They sat just between his shoulder blades. The feathers at the base of his wings were fluffier than the rest. His wings were huge and she couldn’t imagine how they were supposed to fold up. She assumed that they did, but he had them slightly extended since they met. He was probably ready to fly off at any second.  


“So uh, how long are your wings?” She shook her head. That wasn’t the phrase. “Wingspan! What’s your wingspan?” He stretched one wing outwards in thought, but retracted it when the tip bumped against a table.  


“Ah… I don’t remember exactly. They measured them a lot, but they also ripped my feathers out a lot… Maybe fourteen feet? I think that’s what they settled on last.” She winced at the thought of having her hair pulled too tightly when she brushed it. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to have feathers pulled from a wing.  


“Can I touch them?” She knew as soon as she asked that she shouldn’t have. He whirled around to face her, knocking over the empty bowls. He was crouched low in a defensive stance, his feathers ruffled and spread wide, making his wings look twice as large.  


“Don’t,” was all he said.


	2. There's Someone I Want You to Meet

2\. There’s Someone I Want You to Meet

It was approaching three in the afternoon. It had taken her some time to get him calmed down from the earlier incident. At least she knew now that wings were off limits. It didn’t bother her though. She didn’t blame him for being protective after… who knew what all he had been through.  


Gilbert was sleeping now, sprawled out on his belly on her living room floor, one wing draped over the other couch and the other tucked up next to him. She wasn’t sure what she would do when her parents came home, especially if he was still asleep. There’s no good way to explain a sleeping bird boy in your living room.  


She also wasn’t sure how she was supposed to wake him up. He hadn’t reacted well to tough so far and there was no way to predict how well he would react to being woken up.  


He had fallen asleep around one in the afternoon. They had talked for a bit more, though it was mostly just him asking questions about the shows he was watching or him investigating some kind of decoration in their living room. He was chatty and curious and at the very least his mannerisms were quirky and entertaining. She thought of that as a silver lining. If she had been stuck with a mutant by the twisted hands of fate, at least he was an entertaining one.  


She had used his naptime as time to shower and make herself presentable. She never really had a chance after she found him.  


Glancing at the clock, she saw that school had just been dismissed. Almost as if on cue, her phone rang. She looked at the boy on her floor. Still sleeping. She stepped out onto the front step of her house to take the call.  


“Hello?”  


“Eliza? Where were you today?” She smiled. Rodereich, as fretful as always, had called to check up on her.  


“I called in sick today,” she explained.  


“Are you alright?” She could hear the worry in his voice.  


“I’m fine. I just had a rough morning, is all.”  


“What on Earth happened?”  


She considered telling him over the phone briefly, but shook her head at the thought. She barely believed it herself and the living proof was literally in her house asleep.  


“It’s better if I show you. Don’t bother going home first, just come straight here.” She hung up without giving him a chance to reply. She stepped back inside. No change with Gilbert. He was still asleep. Rodereich would be here soon; it was only about a ten minute walk between her house and the school.  


She crouched by his head, but hesitated. She wasn’t sure of a good way to proceed. She whistled sharply, but he barely moved. She did it once more, but still had no luck in actually rousing him.  


“Hey… Gilbert!” She whispered. No good. She decided that she would take a risk and shake his shoulder. He might not like it, but she’d rather face him than let Rodereich startle him accidentally. She reached out slowly and started off by gently poking his shoulder. When she decided that was safe, she put her whole hand on his shoulder. He was rather bony. No doubt he would be scarfing his food down for a while.  


She gave him a gentle shake, but nearly came out of her skin when his hand shot up to grab her by the wrist.  


“Why are you doing this?” He groaned. “I’m sleepy…”  


“Don’t do that!” Elizaveta fussed. “You scared me!” He let go of her wrist and sat up, drawing his wings in. He rubbed his eyes, still outlined with dark circles.  


“What is your name, by the way?” He asked.  


“My name?”  


“Yes. You never told me. Do you have one? Or are names mutant exclusive things?”  


She couldn’t believe she forgot to tell him her name. In over five hours of conversation, not once did she introduce yourself. She had been in such a rush all morning, it never occurred to her.  


“I’m Elizaveta. You can call me Eliza if you want to,” she said, embarrassed. He nodded thoughtfully and mumbled her name a few times under his breath to commit it to memory.  


“Eliza? Eliza. Nice to meet you,” he said. “Now, why am I awake?”  


“There’s someone coming over that I want you to meet. He’s okay, I promise. He won’t tell anyone that you’re here and he won’t hurt you. He’ll be here in just a few minutes and I wanted you to be awake.” She paused for a moment. “Maybe it would be better if we met up in the back yard. Go wait back there. There’s a fence so no one should see you.”  


Gilbert hesitated. He didn’t seem comfortable with more people knowing about him.  


“I promise it will be okay. I have to tell him though. He’d be over here anyways and I can’t go to his place and leave you alone.” Gilbert sighed but said nothing. She hoped he would worry less whenever he actually met Rod. She had to tell someone though. She didn’t know how long this boy would be around and she had no idea what she was doing with him. Plus, not that she wanted to admit it, but she needed someone to validate that Gilbert was a real, living creature and not some vivid hallucination.  


She waited alone in the living room for a few minutes. As soon as the doorbell rang, she was off the couch. She threw open the door, revealing Rodereich on the other side. She pulled him into the room quickly before slamming the door shut.  


Rodereich grabbed her by the arm and pulled her close to him. His brow was furrowed in concern.  


“Are you alright? What’s going on? It’s not like you to just skip school. You left me alone for a chemistry lab, by the way.” His expression changed quickly from worried to annoyed. She kissed his cheek apologetically.  


“Sorry. Things just got a little out of hand this morning. Speaking of, there’s someone I want you to meet.”  
“Who?” he asked, adjusting his glasses.  


“You have to promise not to freak out or else they’ll freak out,” she warned. Rodereich once again looked confused and concerned.  


“Okay… I promise. But I don’t understand.”  


“I don’t either. Now come with me.” She turned and started walking about back, once again not waiting for him to respond. Rodereich was used to this, though. That’s how Eliza was. Once she took charge of a situation, she commanded everyone.  


She stepped outside and spotted Gilbert under the same tree she found him. Silently, she gave thanks that he was still there and didn’t run off. She glanced back at Rodereich. He was looking right at Gilbert, but his expression hadn’t changed a bit.  


“Gilbert, this is Rodereich. Rodereich, this is Gilbert.” She flashed a grin at Gilbert. “Look, I’m getting better at introductions.” Gilbert chuckled at Eliza. His initial grogginess had worn off and he was now a bit livelier. He took a few steps toward them, smiling, albeit nervously. He gave a quick wave to Rodereich and flexed his wings. Rodereich’s jaw dropped as massive wall of white feathers rose before him.  


“Well… this is why I skipped school today. What do you think?” Elizaveta asked. Rodereich composed himself, or he tried. He squinted at the boy in front of him. He had no clue what to think.  


“Okay…” he started off slowly. “I just… I don’t… What the fuck, Eliza?” She gasped. She had never heard him swear before, and for his first to be the f-bomb was even more outrageous than the bird boy in front of them.  


“I’m sorry!” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “It’s just… There’s a half-naked boy here… w-with wings! I didn’t mean to swear, but what even is this?”  


“He’s not a ‘what’,” Elizaveta said defensively, “he’s a ‘he.’ His name is Gilbert and he was born in a lab. He has wings and you now officially know about as much as I do on the matter.”  


“I still don’t know what to think,” Rodereich grumbled. He looked Gilbert up and down, then shook his head. “He’s filthy. And look at his pants! He’s covered in dirt.” Gilbert looked down at his trousers. Rodereich was right, whoever this guy was. He was totally filthy. The dirt on his body didn’t bother him so much, but his wings were getting a little too gross for his liking.  


“Is there any way I can get clean?” Gilbert asked.  


“He can talk?” Rodereich grabbed Elizaveta’s arm again. He was afraid he might collapse. The sheer absurdity of the whole situation was making him dizzy.  


“Of course he can talk. Stop being so rude,” she chastised. “Gilbert, we have a shower upstairs I can set up for you. I’ll get you some clean clothes, too.”  


She led the group back inside the house, showing Gilbert the way upstairs. She started the shower for him before leaving him on his own to bathe. In the meantime, she went through her father’s shirt and sweats drawer, looking for something comfortable that Gilbert could wear. She found an old pair of sweat pants and a baggy t-shirt that probably wouldn’t be missed. She left the clothes outside of the bathroom door, before heading downstairs to sit and wait with Rodereich.  


“Eliza, are you going to keep him here?” he asked quietly. She shrugged. He sighed in response. “Eliza, how on Earth are you going to do this? You don’t think your parents won’t notice the wings? The neighbors?”  


“What am I supposed to do, Rod? He might not even stay here that long but… if he’s not leaving for a while then he needs a place to live. What will happen to him out there? He’s been caged his entire life. He won’t know how to survive on his own.”  


“Another great point: he’s been caged. You said he came from a lab? Someone’s probably looking for him. Which means when they find him here with us-“  


“With ‘us?’” she questioned, her eyes hopeful.  


“I didn’t mean that. I want no part of this… fiasco,” he corrected. “I just mean that they’re going to find him here eventually. They won’t be happy that their project has been derailed for so long. Look, I don’t want to rain on your parade, but he’s dangerous!”  


A creak on the stairs alerted them both that Gilbert was coming, though the conversation was far from over. He walked downstairs, his hair and wings still dripping. He had changed into the new sweats, but held the t-shirt in his hand.  


“I uh, I don’t mean to be inconvenient, but I can’t wear this,” he said as he tossed the shirt back to Elizaveta.  


“Why not?” Gilbert stretched his wings in response. “Oh. Right. I forgot about that…”  


“How do you forget that the boy has wings?” Rodereich questioned.  


“Speaking of inconvenient, I um, well I still haven’t really gotten my wings clean. They’re too big.” Gilbert blushed, clearly embarrassed by his predicament.  


“We have a garden hose in the back yard. Will that help?” Eliza suggested. Gil nodded enthusiastically. Once more, she stood and led the group back outside. She paused briefly and grabbed a pair of scissors from the kitchen before joining the rest.  


Outside, she found the hose and handed the end of it to Gilbert. He hadn’t thought to hold it away from his face as she turned on the water. It wasn't as if he dealt with hoses enough for that to even occur to him. Eliza cracked up, and even Rodereich couldn’t help but laugh at the bird boy as he wiped his face off.  


As he cleaned his wings, Elizaveta took the scissors to the back of the t-shirt and cut slits down the back. She hoped she got the spacing right. It was difficult to judge from a distance.  


The couple watched, mesmerized, as Gilbert rinsed his wings down, thoroughly separating the feathers and cleaning between them. It was a long process that usually required both of his hands. He spent most of the time holding the hose in his mouth.  


“It’s a little weird that you two are watching me clean myself,” he said as he took the hose from his mouth. “I know I’m quite the spectacle but this is just embarrassing.” Just to emphasize his point, he flexed his muscles. Eliza giggled, but Rodereich rolled his eyes.  


“I’m done,” Gilbert called out, signaling Elizaveta to turn off the water. As the two walked over to him, he gave his wings a couple of sharp, powerful flaps, drenching them with a spray of water.  


“Pay back for the hose,” he said, smirking at the two of them. Rodereich, displeased, shot him a dirty look while he dried his glasses. Eliza just continued to giggle and held out the shirt again.  


“Here. Try this. I cut up the back, so maybe your wings will fit.” Gilbert took the shirt and investigated the back of it. Indeed, there were large slits running parallel to the direction of his wings. He put the shirt on and shoved his wings through with only a little bit of difficulty. Giving them one last flap to rid himself of any remaining water drops, he folded them properly and neatly against his back. With them tucked away, he looked much less imposing.  


“Huh. This isn’t too bad, I guess. I normally don’t really wear shirts. But I like this one. It’s soft.” He stopped speaking to stretch briefly. “I want to nap again. Can I?”  


“I suppose so,” Eliza said. “You can go back to the living room if you’d like.”  


“Back and forth, back and forth.” It wasn’t really a complaint, at least she chose not to see it that way. Rodereich held her back until the strange boy was inside and out of earshot.  


“He’s obnoxious,” he griped.  


“He’s… _quirky_ ,” she corrected.  


“He’s obnoxious _and_ dangerous.”


	3. A Place to Sleep

“Oh yeah, he’s real dangerous,” Eliza scoffed, sitting down on the edge of the couch, next to the mutant trying to settle himself. “Just look at the way he tosses and turns. A real villain.”

Gilbert couldn’t settle himself on the couch. It was too inconveniently shaped to accommodate his wings. He rose from the couch and plopped down on the floor instead, where he at least had room to spread out. He laid down on his stomach, much like he had earlier. 

“The floor is uncomfortable,” Gilbert whispered to himself. He huffed in frustration. 

“Do you want a pillow? Or a blanket?” Elizaveta asked. Gilbert propped himself up on his forearms.

“That might help,” he said. He rolled onto his back with his hands outstretched, silently begging for either one. Rodereich looked down at the mutant with disdain. His girlfriend was entertaining a giant child and he could see no possible outcome that wasn’t horrible. 

Elizaveta tossed one of the throw pillows from the couch at Gilbert before disappearing upstairs to fetch a blanket. She returned just a moment later, her bed quilt bundled up in her arms and trailing behind her. She dropped the blanket on top of Gilbert and immediately began to roll around and cocoon himself. This was still dissatisfactory, however. He let out a frustrated grunt before tossing the blanket aside all together. 

“This isn’t good,” he whined. “Is there somewhere else I can go?” Eliza looked to Rodereich to see if he had any ideas on where to go. From the look on his face, she could tell any suggestion would have been miles away from her house. 

“The attic in the garage, maybe?” She asked no one in particular. “Until we can figure everything out, you can stay up there. My parents wouldn’t go up there, plus you could spread out your wings a bit better than you could in here.” The living room wasn’t enough at all for the bird boy and it felt like every time he turned around, his wing was hitting something. 

“That sounds… okay. Let’s go there,” Gilbert mumbled while he stood. He gathered up the pillow and blanket and watched as Elizaveta took the lead out to the garage. Behind him, Rodereich followed along silently. Gilbert shot a grin back to the frowning brunette.

“You look like you could use a nap, too,” he joked.

“That’s not surprising. I’ve known you for ten minutes and already you exhaust me.” Gilbert didn’t respond with anything aside from a shrug as the trio climbed their way up into the attic of the garage. The upstairs was a bit stuffy and a little too warm, but it was spacious enough that Gilbert could stretch his wings worry free of hitting anything, save for a few boxes. 

“Well, here we are,” Eliza said expectantly. Gilbert shook his head.

“No, this won’t do. Not yet.” He took the liberty of arranging the boxes and crates and various loose objects into a roughly circular shape. Once everything was arranged to his liking, Gilbert lined the inside of his circle with the blanket and tossed the pillow in, too.

“It’s… a nest. You made a nest,” Rodereich sighed, in disbelief. Gilbert just smiled proudly at his creation.

“Of course it’s a nest. Kinda. I need room when I’m up for my wings, but I have to be cozy when I sleep.” He settled down in the center of his nest, smiling and feathers ruffled pleasantly. “But it’s not fun with just me.” He reached out and took hold of Eliza’s wrist and pulled her inside the ring of boxes. He gently tugged on her arm, telling her silently to sit down with him. Cautiously, she complied, careful to avoid touching his wings at all. The moment she was eye level with him, he threw his arms around her to pull her closer.

“What are you doing?” Rodereich nearly shouted. “Get your hands off of her!”

“What? I like to cuddle,” Gilbert explained. “You can join too, Rodereich. It’s not exclusive.”

“No.”

“I think you mean ‘yes’,” Gilbert said. He released Eliza from his embrace to grab a hold of Rodereich’s wrist instead. A tug on the arm was all it took to send Rodereich toppling forward into the makeshift nest.

“See? Now is this so bad?” Gilbert asked as he wrapped an arm around both of his human hosts’ waists.

“Yes! It is! Let go of us. Now!” He demanded. Gilbert sighed and released his friends. Rodereich was up and on his way out of the attic in a heartbeat, grumbling about how he wanted nothing to do with the bird boy. Eliza took her time standing and brushing her clothes off.

“I never would have pegged you for a snuggler,” she joked.

“You haven’t known me very long,” Gilbert replied. “Are you going to leave, too?”

She nodded. “I have to. My parents will be home soon. I have to figure out what I’m going to tell them.”

“Someone else has to know about me? And I have to sleep alone?”

“I’ll be careful about what I tell them but if you’re going to stay here they have to know. I can’t sneak around very well. This house is not that big. I’ll be back to see you as soon as possible. Will you be okay here?”

He shrugged, visibly less happy than he was two minutes ago. “It’s fine. It’s a place to sleep. Thanks.”


End file.
